GLORIA SWANSON

"I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star!"

In 1922, the stunning Gloria Swanson declared, "I have gone through a long apprenticeship. I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star! Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know it."

Gloria May Josephine Svensson was born to Joseph and Adelaide in Chicago March 27, 1897. Her maternal grandmother attended the birth and remarked to her daughter, "She's beautiful." Then she took the doctor aside to worriedly ask him, "But aren't her ears very large?"

Joseph was employed by the U.S. Army transport service. Gloria spent most of her childhood on army posts, moving to Key West at age eight and to San Juan at age eleven until at age fifteen her family settled back in Chicago on the second floor at what was 341 West Grace Street. There, Mother Svensson arranged singing lessons for her daughter, who also attended the Chicago Art Institute for a time. Joseph bought and operated the Relic House, located at 900 North Clark Street across from Lincoln Park, a "Refreshment Hall" and "Cafe and Beer Garden," which was built and decorated with wood, molten iron, ceramics and relics salvaged from the Great Chicago Fire in 1872, and there was an adjoining rental library. The bulding was demolished in 1929.

One day in 1914, Aunt Inga took Gloria to visit Chicago's Essanay Movie Studios at 1333-1345 West Argyle Street. Essanay was named after its founders, James K. Spoor and Gilbert Anderson, using their last names' initials, S &A. Inga was a friend of Mr. Spoor. While at the studio, Gloria asked if she could be an extra in a crowd scene "just for the heck of it." A director who thought the 16-year-old girl was vibrant and pretty expanded a role for her in the short film At The End of a Perfect Day.

Later that year, Essanay hired the young beauty as a "stock player," for four days' work at $3.25 a week. Soon she became a "guaranteed player," someone on call for any role at any time. Foreseeing movie stardom, Svensson renamed herself Swanson and appeared in dozens of short films before her first full length role in 1915 in the awkwardly titled The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket. The future fashion plate was thrilled at making enough money to buy all the clothes she loved.

Spoor and Anderson began to tire of lugging their equipment around to make movies on the wide expansive plains of Rogers Park and decided to open a west coast Essanay Studios. California beckoned most of the New York and Chicago film colonies with its orange groves, palm trees, and orchards, and with its refreshing climate which was conducive to year round filmmaking. While visiting Hollywood, Anderson discovered a comedian named Charlie Chaplin. He offered Chaplin a then enormous salary of $1,250 a week, luring him away from the Keystone Studios to Chicago to appear in his movies. Chaplin commuted to Essanay while he lived in the beautiful Brewster Apartments at Diversey Parkway and Pine Grove, with its elaborate grillwork elevators and frosted glass block floors in the atrium balconies.

In 1915, Gloria Swanson was given a small uncredited part in Charlie Chaplin's very first Essanay film, aptly titled His First Job. After a day of filming, Chaplin, and sometimes Swanson, stopped for a drink at the new, elegant Green Mill Gardens, later the site of the Green Mill Lounge, on Broadway at Lawrence Avenue, with its gorgeous outdoor sunken gardens that hosted cabaret shows during the summer months. Soon, Chaplin became a big star, but he disliked Chicago's winter weather and wanted to return to Hollywood where he was offered an astounding amount of money.

To keep Chaplin in Chicago, Spoor tried to blackmail him with photos of his mother, who was insane from syphillis and dying in a sanitarium, threatening to send the pictures to the Tribune if he didn't stay. When Chaplin resisted the blackmail and left Essanay, it was the beginning of the end of the once thriving studio.

After Chaplin left, other Essanay stars began heading west. The Uptown neighborhood surrounding Essanay continued to thrive as an entertainment destination which offered the elegant French Renaissance style 2,500 seat Riviera Theatre with its eight storefronts and 36 "Bachelor Apartments," the gorgeous Spanish Baroque style 4,381 seat Uptown Theatre, the spectacular Mediterranean style Aragon Ballroom, and the magnificent Rainbo Gardens, with the Rainbo Room that could accommodate 2,000 diners, 1,500 dancers, and famous entertainers and orchestras on its revolving stage. Lawrence Avenue was like a highway to the stars.

In Gloria's next film at Essanay, Swedie Goes To College (1915), she met Wallace Beery, a gruff, accomplished actor who first won fame a few years earlier in a series of comedic shorts playing the female Swedie, a 250 pound Swedish maid. A few months later, Beery left the studio for Hollywood, but before he traveled, he proposed marriage to Gloria. Wallace sent a postcard to Gloria urging her to come to California where the film industry was flourishing. With her mother in tow, Gloria joined Wallace and immediately landed a contract with Mack Sennett Studios. Although she thought Wallace, at twice her age, was old enough to be her father, he became her first husband. They eloped on her birthday.

When the ceremony was denied because Gloria could not prove she was of legal age, they picked up her mother and took her along for permission. On their wedding night, Wallace got drunk at a bar, went back to their hotel room, and brutally raped Gloria. He tore her nightgown, ripped her skin with his beard, and left her a cold, hurting, bloody mess. Though scared and horrified, Gloria was ecstatic when she found out she was pregnant. One day she awoke with severe abdominal pain and asked Wallace to get her some medicine from the local pharmacy. Her husband returned with a bottle, placed it on her nightstand, and suggested she take five capfulls. Gloria became horribly nauseated and passed out in pain. When she came to, a nurse was in her room at a hospital. A poison had aborted the child and nearly killed her. Their entire marriage lasted less than two months.

Beery and Swanson both began working in Mack Sennett comedies, known for their "Bathing Beauties." Though Swanson later realized that the split-second timing of these movies improved many of her skills, at that time she thought of them as vulgar and degrading. Amid her loud complaints, Sennett tore up her contract. Gloria then signed with Triangle Pictures, where she was soon bogged down in silly love stories. In 1919 she joined Artcraft Paramount Studios.

That same year, she married her second husband, Herbert Somborn, president of Equity Pictures, and they had a daughter named Gloria. Somborn later became the owner of the famed Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood. After a year of marriage, Somborn decided to divorce Swanson and gain publicity for himself and his small studio by accusing her of adultery with 13 different men, including director Cecil B. DeMille. The charges were ridiculous, since Gloria was only having an affair with one other man, director Marshall Nielan. Gloria decided to settle out of court, and they finally divorced in 1922. She never forgave Somborn, who died in 1934.

Swanson began rising to fame in Cecil B. DeMille epics. Always dressed in spectacular gowns and jewels, millions of fans could not get enough of her, whom DeMille first cast in Don't Change Your Husband(1919). Standing only four-foot-eleven, with dark chestnut hair and blue eyes, it was Swanson who brought the word "glamour" into common usage. In Male and Female (1919), the fearless, elegantly dressed Gloria, dripping in hundreds of pearls and bedecked with peacock feathers, allowed herself to be pawed at by a live lion. In You Can't Believe Everything(1921), the non-swimmer jumped off a pier into deep water to "save" her co-star. Her willingness to risk life and limb for the movies earned her great respect from directors. Gloria loved to titillate her fans with statements considered scandalous at the time, such as "I not only believe in divorce, I sometimes think I don't believe in marriage at all."

In 1922 Gloria starred opposite the famed Rudolph Valentino in Beyond The Rocks, of which publicity shouted that Swanson wears "...fifty luxurious new gowns." The movie became lost for 73 years until a print was discovered in Holland. Now restored, the silent film will be shown again in the United States in October, 2005.

In 1924, Gloria travelled to France to film Madame Sans Gene(1925), a successful endeavor in which she is often seen drenched in Art Deco jewelry. This was the first time a Hollywood star travelled abroad to film a story in its actual locale, at the Fontainbleu Palace. There, she fell madly in love with her handsome interpreter, the Marquis Henri Le Bailly de la Falaise de la Coudray by whom she became pregnant. To elude ruinous publicity she decided to end the pregnancy. It was the only regret of her life. She married the Marquis in Paris and became "Madame La Marquise."

The most famous star on earth was now an actual member of royalty, and their union made headlines around the world. The publicity was tremendous as they travelled to New York for the premiere, where they received a standing ovation. Then, following a huge Hollywood parade to welcome them home, they settled into Swanson's 22-room Beverly Hills mansion at 904 Crescent Drive, which was known for its enormous black marble bath and golden tub. Gloria became the Queen of the Screen as the number one box office attraction who sped around town in her regal, real leopard-upholstered Lancia. Everyone in Hollywood wanted to meet her Marquis, who was very well liked. However, Henri was impoverished, and Gloria put him on her payroll. It was famously reported that Gloria Swanson was the second woman to have earned a million dollars, and the first to have spent it.

Two years later, Gloria embarked on an affair with the married Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the future president, who told a friend, "I've won the most celebrated actress in America." Joseph also became her financial partner, allowing her to produce her own films for United Artists. He sent her husband to France to work on a project.

Gloria then starred in The Loves of Sunja (1927), which was a flop, and the successful Sadie Thompson(1928). Next came the lavish, lurid, sexually obsessed, ill-fated, never finished, severely over-budget Queen Kelly(1929), which was still in production when talking pictures arrived, helping to further doom the film directed by Erich Von Stroheim. Pressure from Kennedy's family and his longing to further involve himself in politics put more strain on their relationship, and Boston's Cardinal O'Connell personally visited Gloria to urge her to end her adulterous liason.

The pair severed their ties by 1930. Kennedy lost a fortune in their business endeavor, and later told his Aide, Harvey Klemmer, "A certain dame in Hollywood, whom you know about, wrecked my business, wrecked my health, and damn near wrecked my life." Meanwhile, Henri began an affair with movie star Constance Bennett, and he and Gloria divorced in 1931 That same year, Swanson married for the fourth time to sportsman Michael Farmer. They had a daughter, Michelle, and adopted a son, Joseph. They were divorced in 1934.

Swanson adapted easily to the coming of sound in movies, making her first talkie, The Tresspasser, in 1929. She could sing very well and displayed her vocal talent in Tonight Or Never(1931), and Music In The Air(1934). Yet her greatest film triumphs were behind her. That year, she moved to New York for a year where she worked at the Astoria Studios. Her reputation as a good actress and a clotheshorse continued to grow. A famous couturier, Captain Edward Molyneux, noted, "She is not only one of the best gowned women in the movies, but in the world." Swanson made only five films in the 1930's, and it was six years before her "comeback" in the disastrous 1941 comedy Father Takes A Wife. In 1946, she married her fifth husband, hard-drinking William N. Davey, a union that lasted just 44 days.

"The Gloria Swanson Hour" premiered on televison June 15, 1948, filmed before a live audience in New York, in which she interviewed eight to twelve persons. She divided her weekly hour into four sessions: "Glamour On A Budget"-usually a session with her secretary who would find wonderful accessories at a great price, "Chef's Holiday"-where Gloria would interview New York chefs who would describe or cook a dish, "Design For Living"-with experts who would present new objects for the home, and "Trends"-all about the social gatherings and fashionable events around town.

In early 1949, she left her show to begin work on her fifth "comeback" in film. In 1950, nine years after her last movie was released, she made a triumphant return to the screen as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, the story of a faded silent movie queen who murders her much younger lover, played by William Holden. Gloria was perfectly cast, still beautiful, and sensational playing the unstable star. In one scene she did a brilliant personification of her friend Charlie Chaplin, an impersonation which she had performed years earlier in Manhandled (1925). Cecil B. DeMille played himself, alongside his favorite female star.

It was in this film that Gloria uttered her most famous line, "All right Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Erich Von Stroheim, who directed her in Queen Kelly in 1928, was given the role of her loyal butler and first husband. Gloria basked in her reprised and revered stardom. One critic raved, "Gloria Swanson's portrait of an aging movie queen is one of the screen's great masterpieces. Unquestionably! Here is a performance of such depth and magnitude that it defies description."

However, it forevermore annoyed Gloria that people believed she was the same personality as Norma Desmond. The only similarity to Norma was that Gloria was equally glamorous and grand. Gloria lived in the present, never in the past as Norma did. She told the press, "I never look back. I always look ahead. I never regret. I have excitement every waking minute." Swanson's next role in Three For Bedroom C (1952) was a dismal failure. That same year she appeared on Broadway in a revival of Twentieth Century.

Gloria established a successful line of cosmetics she named "Essence of Nature," which were made of only natural ingredients, and promoted a line of clothing she designed called "Forever Young." She continued to work on stage and television throughout the rest of her life. In 1960, the fantastic Eliot Elisofon photo published in Life Magazine of Swanson elegantly gowned and bejewelled, standing dramatically with arms outstretched amid the rubble of the demolished Roxy Theatre in New York, was the inspiration for the story of the 1971 Stephen Sondheim musical Follies.

The magnificent Roxy had opened in 1928 with The Loves of Sunya, which starred Swanson in her first collaboration with Kennedy. She returned to Broadway in 1971 to appear in Butterflies Are Free. In 1974, she filmed a televison movie, Killer Bees, and in 1975, she played herself in Airport 1975. In 1976 she married for the sixth and final time to William Dufty, an author who collaborated on more than 40 books, and also wrote Sugar Blues about the dangers of sugar in the diet. Gloria never tired of promoting her own dietary ideas while traveling everywhere with her own pressure cooker and assortment of natural bread, herbs, and teas.

Gloria often visited Chicago, where she stayed at the Ambassador East Hotel. When the elevator operators were replaced with automatic cars, she was fearful of riding in them and began to stay instead at the Belden-Stratford Hotel. Orchestra leader Stanley Paul was a friend of Gloria and invited her to his suite in the Ambassador. Knowing how fearful she was of the automatic elevators, he met her in the lobby to escort her personally. While riding upwards, their car suddenly stalled for a minute. Gloria turned pale and froze with fear.

In her later years, the still glamorous star, a beautiful icon from the early days of film wrote ".....all the puritanical hypocrisy of the 1920's even cost me a baby's life, when I had to abort my child by the Marquis in 1925 to avoid scandal and save my career." In 1980-1981 Swanson embarked on a grueling cross-country promotional tour for her autobiogaphy Swanson On Swanson. Her book received phenomenal reviews---"Sparkling....Movie stars' memoirs don't get any better." and "the most revealing book ever written by a movie queen." Swanson said of herself and other Hollywood royalty: "We lived like kings and queens, and why not?"

Gloria Swanson died in her sleep April 4, 1983. The New York Times honored her with an editorial entitled "THE GREATEST STAR OF THEM ALL. "

Sources

Swanson On Swanson by Gloria Swanson
The Films Of Gloria Swanson by Lawrence J Quirk
The New York Times Directory of the Film
Celebrity Register edited by Cleveland Amory with Earl Blackwell
Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger
Gods & Goddesses of the Movies by John Kobal
Stanley Paul
Gloria Swanson websites

Steve Starr is the author of "Picture Perfect"--Art Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published by Rizzoli International Publications. A designer, artist, and chronicler of movie stars, he is the owner of Steve Starr Studios, specializing in original Art Deco photo frames, furnishings and jewelry, and celebrating its 38th anniversary in 2005.

Starr's personal collection of over 950 gorgeous, original Art Deco frames is filled with photos of Hollywood's most glamorous luminaries. A portion of his collection containing images of stars who contributed to movie musicals of the 1930's-1940's is on exhibition at the Harold Washington Library Center, 8th floor, just below the Winter Garden through September, 2005. Admission is free. The show, like his column, is named STARRLIGHT.

View the studio at www.SteveStarrStudios.com. Visit the Steve Starr Satellite Studio at the Ravenswood Antique Mart, 4727 North Damen Avenue, in Chicago, 60640, 733-271-3700. You may email Steve at SSSChicago@ameritech.net.

Photo of Steve Starr, July 25, 2002, by Albert Aquilar.

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